Smile 2 Director Reveals He Has Enough Stories for a Third Movie

Parker Finn, the director behind the 2022 horror gem Smile, says there are some ideas he wants to explore with a franchise continuation. While the sequel Smile 2 will be released in the upcoming weeks, Finn is addressing that we haven’t seen everything yet in the horror universe of creepy smiles: “We felt like we’d uncovered the mystery in the first one, but we’ve maybe only scooped a single glass of water out of the ocean.”

As reported by Games Radar, Finn is already thinking of making a third film of what can already be considered a blockbuster franchise. The first film, released in 2022, was a groundbreaking success in the post-COVID-19 era. Smile was planned to be an exclusive release on Paramount+, but after very positive test screenings, and the resulting hype after premiering at Fantastic Fest and Beyond Fest, Paramount Pictures decided to go for a theatrical release. The result was a $217 million blockbuster with an instantly-approved sequel.

While promoting Smile 2, the director spoke of the possibility of further exploring the concept with more sequels and stories:

“There was information I had for myself that wasn’t expressed in the first film that I took the opportunity to bring into the new one, so what
Smile 2
is doing is showing us new things.

There are some ideas that I think are very exciting. I think it’s really fun to imagine a lineage of
Smile
movies where each one becomes more off the rails than the previous one.

What’s really interesting about
Smile
is that you can find yourself in different stories, different characters, different worlds.”

Smile 2 stars Naomi Scott as Skye Riley, a world-famous pop musician who finds herself facing the ultimate threat as she’s going on a world tour. The film features modern horror king Kyle Gallner, reprising his character from the first movie. The supporting cast also includes Rosemarie DeWitt, Lukas Gage, Raúl Castillo, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, and Drew Barrymore, among others. It’s still uncertain what role Barrymore will play during her legendary return to horror.

Could the Smile Phenomenon Take Place Again?

Marketing was a huge factor during the promotion of Smile. The campaign went viral on social media after random people started creepily smiling in the street, and people started recording them. The hype was instant and made everyone think how such an easy concept hadn’t been explored before. Making over $200 million at the box office against a budget of $17 million was also proof that viral marketing was the way to go for the second film.

Related

Smile: Scariest Moments, Ranked

Smile was a smash hit and a breakout film for the horror genre. These were the scariest moments that made it so chilling.

For Smile 2, the tone has been taken down a notch. So far, we’ve only seen Skye Riley being promoted as a real pop star with real singles being released and billboards being put up to promote her latest album. While any marketing is good marketing, it is yet to be seen whether Smile 2 can repeat the success of its predecessor as Halloween approaches. As long as it becomes even a moderate hit, then we can probably expect to see Smile becoming an annual piece of event cinema.

Smile 2
releases exclusively in theaters on October 18, 2024.

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